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Physical Activity: What’s the big deal?

Welcome back lovlies! I hope you have been enjoying our weekly menu plans, even if you don’t follow them completely I hope they are helping inspire some new weeknight meal ideas. In addition to these menu plans I will be focusing more on providing information and inspiration on leading an healthy and active lifestyle.

You may be asking yourself who am I to dish out this advice? To set your mind at ease, I have dedicated most of my life to studying and assisting people live healthy and active lifestyles. I have certifications in massage therapy, fitness an Honours Degree in Human Movement Science and a PhD in the same area with a focus on health promotion through physical activity. I have also spent the last 5 years researching ways to promote physical activity so any information I provide will come from a very strong background and will be well researched!

So here we are before I start, people have many different understandings of what physical activity is. When I talk about physical activity, I talk about it according to it’s true definition. According to the World Health Organisation, physical activity is really any form of bodily movement that will expend energy. In line with this definition, physical activity is an extremely broad term and the more generally used term ‘Exercise’ is therefore a form of physical activity. Exercise is generally planned, structured, repetitive, and purposeful with a focus on improving or maintaining physical fitness.

Physical activity therefore includes exercise as well as many other activities. Such activities can be done as part of work, transport, household chores and recreational activities. Think climbing the stairs at work, walking to the bus stop, moping the floor and playing sport. These are all forms of physical activity, whereas only the activity playing sport would also be categorised as ‘exercise’.

Promoting and encouraging physical activity is my passion, not simply focusing on exercise of fitness. Whilst exercise is extremely important, first and foremost increasing the amount of physical activity in one’s life is an important first step. Estimates suggest that anywhere between 20-50% of adults and 80% of adolescents are not active enough in their everyday life to receive health benefits. The health benefits of being regularly active cannot be understated, physical activity benefits both mind and body.

There you have it! A brief background into physical activity, what it means and why it is important. Now that we have the basics introduced I look forward into getting into more details in the coming posts!

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